Nottinghamshire Chess Association

Nottinghamshire County Championship 2009

Robert Richmond

The Championship produced a grandstand finish, with the top two games the last to finish. Stubborn
defence by Pete Mercs prevented Alex Combie from converting his extra pawn, and both finished on 3½.
The last game to finish was fittingly between the two highest graded players, with Pablo Padilla Cabero
needing to beat Mike Barnes for the title. This was looking unlikely until deep into the blitz finish,
since he was the wrong side of R vs N + P. However Mike went wrong in the complications and Pablo squeezed
through to become the new County Champion.

The U160 was a University clean sweep, with Tim Poole and Keith Walters sharing 1st place. Andrew Garside
and Adam Riley (in his first tournament) were the runaway winners of the U135 and U100 respectively, with
Andrew also becoming Junior Champion. Second place went to Mark Kenyon (Age 9) in the U135 and brother
James (Age 11) in the U110. John Buttery took the senior prize and Louise Brace, George Seabridge and
Raghav Sudarshan sharing the junior prizes.

Best game prizes, one in each section, awarded to Pablo Padilla, Keith Walters, Mark Kirtley and
George Seabridge. The Championship award was a bit of a toss up between Pablo and the shock win in
round 1 by Richard Webster over Mike Barnes, but I like the finish in Pablo's game. Keiths' tactics are
brief but spectacular. Marks' game is wild, but black always seems to be in control. George has a
convincing K-side attack. Play through the games

The entry was 55, up from 48 last year, with the grading changes producing more even spread of numbers
in the various sections. My thanks, as always, to the High School for the venue and for assistance from
John Swain.